Read Online Exile Hunter by Preston Fleming - Free Book Online Page B

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until his feet supported his weight and he could stand upright. As he
balanced on wobbly legs, a sharp pain in his left knee suddenly
eclipsed his nausea and headache. He limped across the floor to the
door and tugged at the handle. It wouldn’t budge.
    Giving up on the door,
he returned to the cot and sat to review his circumstances. First,
the dream. It had been frightening, to be sure, but its content and
images were refreshingly different from those in his usual
nightmares. In those, the persons he had targeted over the years for
assassination or capture had reproached him bitterly for having
marked them for ruin, holding their pale and forlorn faces close to
his.
    In this dream, no
victims accosted him or barred his way. Though the way forward seemed
perilous, it lay open to him if he dared force his way through. The
problem, of course, was that the dream offered him no other choice.
When and if it recurred, he would face this personal valley of the
shadow of death again and again.
    A few moments later, he
heard a crackling overhead like the static from an amplifier and
looked up at the ceiling. Just above the door, he spotted a built-in
loudspeaker and surmised that the unit might also contain a
microphone or video camera.
    “Anybody there?” he
called out as he examined the speaker more closely.
    No answer.
    “Anybody? Nobody?”
he called louder. “Hey! Come on, how about opening the door?”
    Still no answer.
    He retrieved the water
bottle and drank half of it at one draught. He still felt nauseous,
but the throbbing at his temple and the ache in his knee pushed the
nausea far enough into the background for him to notice his hunger.
He broke off a piece of pita bread and held it to his nose. It was
stiff and dry but smelled okay, so he ate it.
    He chewed slowly on the
bread while his thoughts moved on. His physical discomfort was a
tangible reminder that he had somehow been rendered unconscious and
removed forcibly from Philip Eaton’s flat. Whatever prompted
Bednarski and Denniston to order the capture of Eaton and his family,
his cover as Joe Tanner was irretrievably blown and it was unlikely
he would be cleared to resume undercover work against rebel exiles
any time soon. It seemed he would be returning to the States, after
all.
    The next question was
how badly the Department’s effort against the rebel exiles had been
compromised by the way the operation against Eaton had ended, and
more pointedly, how much damage this would likely do to his career.
Without a doubt, various regulations and procedures existed to cover
situations like this, but in Linder’s experience, such rules were
usually applied after the fact to justify whatever decision the
bosses had already chosen to reach.
    Certain favorite sons,
often those with strong Party credentials, were sometimes let off
scot-free or with a nominal slap on the wrist. Employees with
reputations as black sheep, mavericks, or lone wolves usually had the
book thrown at them. And in his own case, Linder had a pretty good
idea of how Headquarters would see things. Unless Denniston or
Bednarski came to his rescue, he would be cast as the scapegoat and
thrown to the wolves.
    Linder scolded himself
for not having listened to his inner voice that had warned him not to
come to Beirut. Even after his arrival, he might have found a pretext
to shirk his role in the operation. It wouldn’t have required him
to disappear completely, as in his persistent fantasy. All it would
have required was to stay out of action long enough for Denniston and
Bednarski to find a replacement.
    All at once Linder felt
a wave of stomach-churning anxiety sweep over him as his thoughts
turned to Patricia Kendall and her daughter. Had they also been
gassed and brought unconscious to a cell like this, perhaps a few
doors away? After having not seen Patricia for two decades, what
could it possibly mean that their utterly improbable meeting had come
to such an end?
    Linder strained